Torn between options for ladder start in hc multi setup.

So I have 3 copies of D2R which I plan to run simultaneously. This isn't meant to be a topic about the ethics of playing this way, so just take it as given. I prefer it to hunting for open games to get better nodrop rates, especially in hardcore.

I can only play one character at a time and for ladder start, my objective is to play one main character supported by two others that idle in the game most of the time.

Those two characters are likely to be an

Enchant sorceress (for teleporting to location when needed) and a BO slave barb (with

Grim Ward maybe for

Baal waves).

My main conundrum comes down to this:

Should the main character be a summon necro or a bowazon, to make most use of the above setup?

What are your thoughts? This is for HC ladder.

Are your slaves stuck in town or do you have some sort of auto-follow for them?

Getting a pally on auto-follow for a summoner would be a fairly nice addition. Plus then you'd actually lvl your slaves as well.

Summon druid does make for a decent alternative to summon necro post 2.4 as well.

The "best choice" obviously depends on what you actually want to achieve though. Play through just for fun? Farm like a mad man for ladder-profit? Ladder-run to try and compete for 99?

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Are your slaves stuck in town or do you have some sort of auto-follow for them?

Getting a pally on auto-follow for a summoner would be a fairly nice addition. Plus then you'd actually lvl your slaves as well.

Summon druid does make for a decent alternative to summon necro post 2.4 as well.

The "best choice" obviously depends on what you actually want to achieve though. Play through just for fun? Farm like a mad man for ladder-profit? Ladder-run to try and compete for 99?

I'll be playing on bnet so no cheats or tools. Don't want to risk losing my accounts.

I'll be bringing the slaves into

Baal's chamber manually for exp, but mostly they'll be sitting around waiting to refresh buffs. On HC, I don't want to risk more than that because controlling three windows when shit hits the fan, sounds like it could have a bad outcome.

I think I will gear out the sorc sufficiently, so that she can retrieve the body in case my main dies and also

Teleport ahead to locations my main would need to walk to.

I have been considering builds for a druid as well, but I think they'll be slower than a necro when both enchanted. Necromancers have more minions and curses, where druids would just sit and watch. Gearing a druid would be cheaper than a necro since they're less popular and they should have more survivability with

Oak Sage.

Rather than helping me decide between two options, Schnorki, you've added a third.

hggggnnnhhh

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

Rather than helping me decide between two options, Schnorki, you've added a third.

Glad to be of service.

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

So I have 3 copies of D2R which I plan to run simultaneously. This isn't meant to be a topic about the ethics of playing this way, so just take it as given. I prefer it to hunting for open games to get better nodrop rates, especially in hardcore.

I can only play one character at a time and for ladder start, my objective is to play one main character supported by two others that idle in the game most of the time.

Those two characters are likely to be an

Enchant sorceress (for teleporting to location when needed) and a BO slave barb (with

Grim Ward maybe for

Baal waves).

My main conundrum comes down to this:

Should the main character be a summon necro or a bowazon, to make most use of the above setup?

What are your thoughts? This is for HC ladder.

Good afternoon/evening. How to run 2 copies at the same time?

Have multiple computers!

There are many ways to do it on a single computer as well, but they all involve owning multiple copies of d2r on multiple battlenet accounts and some sort of 3rd party software solution.

I'll leave it to you to find what works best for you, but the method I use shows up on the first page of google search results, so I think you'll figure it out.

So I think I'm going to aim for having a poison/summon necromancer somewhere along the lines of this by mid/late ladder. I don't play as much as I'd like to, so using expensive gear is unrealistic. However, I think something along these lines is achievable.

Build: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/qw0106p5

The items I chose are generally swappable for whatever I find and are not BiS. However, there's a few things that I think are important to aim for. Those are -enemy poison resistance (Plague and

Trang-Oul's Wing - 3 piece), 75% faster cast rate for sanity and safety, max resistances (I play hardcore) and a good White base (+mastery/summon) for the swap.

With my specific strategy, I won't need CTA on the swap or need to worry about my

Skeleton's hit chance as much. It's also more efficient to stay in single games longer and farm more areas.

With that in mind, I decided to optimize for summoning on the swap and poison on the main.

I sacrificed all points in

Skeleton Mastery, since especially at the higher points, it has diminishing returns at the margin. The skeletons also only need mastery when summoned, not later on. Same goes for the Insight

Iron Golem. So I just make sure to be on the swap, when I leave my game so that the golem has the best stats possible when I join the next.

Any additional points would go into

Poison Explosion for the synergy damage.

I will be putting out physical, fire and poison damage in what I estimate to be roughly similar amounts.

I'm still considering my choice of mercenary since I think Act 1 Fire, Act 2 Might or Act 5

Frenzy would all work.

Let me know what you think and if you can make some recommendations for changes.

EDIT: I just realized I'm at 0 FHR. So maybe I need to work in something like

Sandstorm Trek,

Que-Hegan's Wisdom, Stealth or Smoke.

Seems like a fairly reasonable goal I would say.

What I'd be curious about is the coming ladder pricing of

Cham runes. I wouldn't be surprised if you could actually get a mediocre

Death's Web for less than you'd invest into a Plague.

As for the FHR, I wouldn't worry too much about that with your intended build.

With the summoning side of it, you have plenty of meat shields running around anyways and the main times where you really want FHR in PvE as a caster is for when you accidentally teleported into some boss pack so you can

Teleport out without being locked down. Since your build doesn't involve Enigma however and you hence won't be teleporting, you don't really need to worry about that.

Though yeah, if you do end up missing it, sandstorm + que-hegan's alone shave off 5 full frames for a necro, without sacrificing the skill pt you're currently looking for from viper (as opposed to Stealth or Smoke which would lower your dmg performance).

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Seems like a fairly reasonable goal I would say.

What I'd be curious about is the coming ladder pricing of

Cham runes. I wouldn't be surprised if you could actually get a mediocre

Death's Web for less than you'd invest into a Plague.

As for the FHR, I wouldn't worry too much about that with your intended build.

With the summoning side of it, you have plenty of meat shields running around anyways and the main times where you really want FHR in PvE as a caster is for when you accidentally teleported into some boss pack so you can

Teleport out without being locked down. Since your build doesn't involve Enigma however and you hence won't be teleporting, you don't really need to worry about that.

Though yeah, if you do end up missing it, sandstorm + que-hegan's alone shave off 5 full frames for a necro, without sacrificing the skill pt you're currently looking for from viper (as opposed to Stealth or Smoke which would lower your dmg performance).

Hmm, no doubt

Cham will be worth more in 2.4 with the addition of Mist and Plague, but I'm hoping not too much. If it does get expensive a Spirit, Heart of the Oak, low

Death's Web or some other

Wand will do in that spot.

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

There are many ways to do it on a single computer as well, but they all involve owning multiple copies of d2r on multiple battlenet accounts and some sort of 3rd party software solution.

I'll leave it to you to find what works best for you, but the method I use shows up on the first page of google search results, so I think you'll figure it out.

Thanks. The option with 2 pcs is optimal for me. I didn't think about it myself Apparently women's brains work strangely sometimes. We usually play together with a friend, or I play alone. Players on the forums write that the game makes things drop better when 3 players. I do not know how much this is true, but I am interested in checking it out.

Moondew wrote: 2 years ago

Katonda wrote: 2 years ago

There are many ways to do it on a single computer as well, but they all involve owning multiple copies of d2r on multiple battlenet accounts and some sort of 3rd party software solution.

I'll leave it to you to find what works best for you, but the method I use shows up on the first page of google search results, so I think you'll figure it out.

Thanks. The option with 2 pcs is optimal for me. I didn't think about it myself Apparently women's brains work strangely sometimes. We usually play together with a friend, or I play alone. Players on the forums write that the game makes things drop better when 3 players. I do not know how much this is true, but I am interested in checking it out.

Yes, at 3, 5 and 7 players in a game the chance for monsters to drop any item increases. There's a formula you can look up. Just google 'no drop player count formula d2'.

They just need to be in the game somewhere, don't need to be next to you.

However, monsters also hit harder and have more hp with each additional player and players only receive exp from monsters when they are in a party and near the dying monster.

I tried to make the Act 1 merc work in theory. On the cheap I thought of

Riphook, Treachery and any decent helmet socketed with a 15ias jewel to get her to the fastest breakpoint so that she could rapid fire those enchanted fire skills. Harmony or Insight with Treachery and a 15 ias helmet on her for mobility will get her to the second highest ias breakpoint instead. I looked into Mist with Treachery and a 3 x 15 ias helmet (for piercing enchanted fire attacks) as well as a Faith setup, which both were also able to reach the max breakpoint. However, I'm not sure either of those are worth it for my build or realistically attainable this ladder.

On paper she's just nowhere near an Act 5

Frenzy merc with Unbending Will, Duress and

Arreat's Face. His movement speed discounts the ranged advantage the rogue has and his attack speed with a few stacks of

Frenzy is maxed even without ias gear. beyond Unbending Will, there are so many other excellent runewords to consider for him to wield once I build some capital. He's so bananas, that I could equip Wealth on him and he would still rip face and be nearly immortal.

I haven't checked out the Act 2 mercenary much, but I don't even know what Aura I would want... might probably, but it wouldn't make much of a difference to my overall damage. My

Skeleton's will be dealing mostly fire damage, so the aura will only really benefit the merc himself.

So it's probably going to be an act 5 merc for me.

Any input?

I had a go at making a druid build. It's not a cheap one!

Build: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/vz0106ps

According to this calculator, with level 9

Fanaticism, a

War Spike, 40 on weapon IAS from Beast and 30 off-weapon IAS maximum Fury frames are reached with

Werewolf level 13. Alternatively, a

Berserker Axe could be used with

Laying of Hands (for 50 off-weapon IAS) and level 16

Werewolf to reach the same frame ceiling for Fury. Focusing on +skills instead of standard melee stats like crushing blow, means that a sufficient

Werewolf level can be reached without investing many hard points.

The build should play similarly to a Fury Druid, except that you are accompanied by a group of maxed summons, that are all enchanted. You have a shorter transformation time, due to lower

Lycanthropy and you don't run as fast since

Feral Rage isn't maxed. But both of those have diminishing returns, so investing in them has a steep opportunity cost.

Similar to the Necromancer build I shared earlier, you summon and transform on the swap, and engage enemies with Beast +

Stormshield.

I went for a max block approach, with high damage reduction and good sustain from

Dracul's Grasp. Coupled with my slaves' barbarian buffs and

Enchant, my summons, merc and I should be very tanky.

There are points left that could either go into

Raven,

Oak Sage or maybe

Heart of Wolverine if I'm feeling safe without the extra HP or need the extra offense.

A mercenary with a chance to proc

Decrepify and/or a Might aura could round out the build.

If it wasn't so expensive, I think it would make a very strong candidate and be a lot of fun to play.

What do you think, especially about the choice of weapons + off weapon IAS?

EDIT: I realize I lack any mana steal, so maybe substituting

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band for a ring with mana steal or swapping

Dracul's Grasp for

Soul Drainer would be a better approach.

Updated Build: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/qy0106o1

On the swap, with an added shapeshifting skiller in the inventory, I have level 19

Werewolf. According to the calculator, that's enough to max out Fury's frames with Beast in a

Berserker Axe and 40 off-weapon IAS.

Max attack speed break points Act 1 Rogue with 100% piercing attack,

Concentration,

Inner Sight and

Slow Missiles sounds like a strong addition to the team. I lose the potential mercenary with

Decrepify proc, but I think she makes up for it.

Edit 2: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/wa0106y1

Includes

Atma's Scarab

Just something to keep in mind if you really want to play with multiboxing alone in hardcore:

Make sure your dummy chars are always equipped to be able to loot your main should Death occur.
There's nothing more embarrassing than begging for loot.

Insomnia wrote: 2 years ago

Just something to keep in mind if you really want to play with multiboxing alone in hardcore:

Make sure your dummy chars are always equipped to be able to loot your main should Death occur.
There's nothing more embarrassing than begging for loot.

The ench sorc should be good enough to

Teleport ahead for the main when needed and to retrieve stuff from his corpse tool. I plan to invest in

Energy Shield for her and get her merc decked out. She should be tanky and the merc should be able to clear things on their own. It won't be quick, but it should get the job done.

Yesterday I did a dry run, to see how things would go.

Technically speaking, everything went fine. I think 32 GB of ram work well for 3 games running in parallel, with nothing else running. I had to lower my GFX settings to low on all 3 clients and set two of them into legacy graphics for my frames to be acceptable with a GTX 970. I had no crashes in 8 hours of play.

Practically, I managed to have both of my slaves die in the

Inner Cloister while I was trying to level them. This really brought home how much tankyness and a good mercenary will be important for any unattended characters. At least until I get more comfortable, I will level them one at a time.

After a day of play and two silly deaths, I now have a

Enchant sorc, bo barb and summon necro around level 25 ready to do

Baal runs in normal. I'm considering replacing the barb with a summon druid in 2.4. I think I could play a summon necro and summon druid simultaneously, since neither requires much micro.

I will likely have my main characters spread across the accounts and an

Enchant sorc and bo barb on each of the accounts so I'm never wanting. I imagine the price of sorc fire skillers and barb sing skillers are quite a bit higher on HC than SC for this very reason.

In general, I really like this style of playing especially since on HC, there are very very few public games. This will hopefully change with ladder.

I had a go at an end game strafe/ench bowazon build. It focuses on unlocking the second highest

Strafe frames and survival.

And here's a version where each item is around

Pul or less.

Let me know what you think!

I thought I should update this thread with some information. I've been playing ladder hc for the past 3 days and have managed to get my necro, sorc and baba up to level 75-78.

I've learned what works and what doesn't a bit, while playing. The sorc was a

Hydra sorc up until 75 when I swapped her to

Enchant. The necro was a summoner/fishymancer up until 77 or so. While I initially wanted to level the barb as a thrower, I quickly realized how tough that would be without any twinking. The barb effectively became and still is a BO slave, which was really good to have around throughout the game. My favorite way of playing, was to have the screen split into 4 windows. 3 d2r instances in legacy graphics and a browser or a single 'main' d2r instance in new graphics for when I was piloting a single character. When d2r is minimized to a quarter screen, the legacy graphics make everything much more legible.

Here's my current Necro's build as it is on live.

A few things were different than expected with crap to low value gear:

For one, relying on the +skills alone to get

Skeleton Mastery up high enough didn't work. The

Skeleton warrior's were too squishy and re-summoning means re-enching, which is a time-killer. So I needed to place some hard points here. I'm still not sure if I will max this or not. I skipped using any kind of golem, for now. It just dies too quickly. Harmony is really nice. It gets the skeletons into action quickly and makes both me and my rogue more nimble. Now here's where I commit blasphemy. I don't use

Corpse Explosion. Like at all. In times when my skeletons and I don't melt through things,

Corpse Explosion wouldn't help, since it's damage is more of the same. I usually just skip whatever it is that's taking too long. I had it maxed at first, but it just wasn't working for me. I might retry it when I have better gear. However, I think that with enchanted & maxed skeletons, focusing on maxing

Poison Nova and it's synergies will be better than relying on

Corpse Explosion, since there is more variety in damage type and

Poison Nova is much easier to use than

Corpse Explosion. It also means I can consider cold damage mercenaries and gear without caring about shattering corpses.

EDIT: RIP Ench Sorc level 80